Chef Gaynol

Healthy Pumpkin Muffins

Tomorrow marks the start of the official eating season.  For the next six weeks we'll be bombarded on all sides with eggnog, candy, cookies, chips, pies, tarts, cakes and meals galore!  People you haven't seen all year will suddenly want to reconnect with you and you'll go out for coffee, breakfast, lunch, drinks, quick bites, appetizers, dinner, and late night buffets.  It's no wonder that by the first of the year we'll be sobbing over zippers that won't close and buttons that refuse to assume their assigned duty.

We don't have to give in!  I'm not suggesting you forgo all the tasty treats, just that occasionally during this month of excess that you bake something healthy and delicious to balance out all the decadence. 

These muffins  are a mixture of wheat and white flour, healthy fiber filled pumpkin and just enough sugar to give them a subtle sweetness.  You could stow a couple in your bag as you head out to do some holiday shopping (is anyone shopping this year?  Buying things is so last year...you know when we all had some money left.)

Sweet and Spicy Nuts

No, I'm not talking about your immediate family.  The nuts I'm thinking about are covered in sugar and spices, heated up with hot butter and thrown out on waxed paper to cool.  Please tell me you're not still thinking of the relatives.  I know the holidays are stressful but it would really take a lot of butter to saute Aunt Ethel so let's just move on shall we?

For this recipe you're going to need;

Sweet and Spicy Nuts

Sweet and Spicy Nuts-One Page Printable Recipe

3 cups unsalted nuts (such as pecans, almonds, walnuts, or a combination)
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1/4  cup brown sugar
3 TBS butter
1 TBS water

Spicy Black Bean and Rice Casserole

Okay, budget lovers, we're back for another round of cheap eats.  The weather's getting colder and I've been in the mood for something spicy and satisfying.  This black bean casserole is easy to put together and will give you a lot of protein bang for your buck.

Homemade Rocky Road Ice Cream

Now that I have your attention, we'll focus on how to make this delectable treat at home.  First a little history.  There are two companies claiming to have concocted the rocky road flavor.  First in line is Dryer's Inc.  Company lore says that in 1929  William Dreyer  added walnuts to his chocolate ice cream and, cut marshmallows into bite sized pieces using his wife's sewing scissors (I bet she was thrilled with that development.)  He christened the concoction Rocky Road  "a name that gave people something to smile about in the face of the Great Depression," (though how they could afford it was another matter.)

Second in line is a cacophony of confusing claims surrounding Fenton's Creamery.   They claim that Dreyer based his recipe on a flavor invented by Fenton's friend George Farren.  Farren is said to have mixed his rocky road style candy bar into chocolate ice cream.   Note this is a rocky road "style" candy bar.  The Annabelle Candy Company founded in 1950 holds the trademark for the Rocky Road candy bar that many of us know and love but it was not part of the original rocky road flavor.

Zucchini Bread

I really thought I was done with zucchini for the summer, but apparently I was wrong.  It's all because I'm easily susceptible to the begging and pleading and tear filled eyes of my local CSA staff.  "Please, please can't you take just a couple more?"  I hate to see grown women reduced to tears over squash, so I caved and bought home three small zucchini.  So far this summer I've made cranberry-zucchini muffins, zucchini wheat bread and enough zucchini bread to make my freezer shelfs groan.  I thought about entering them in the Zucchini 500 at the Fremont Oktoberfest , but it seemed a waste of good food.  The recipe that follows is my favorite out of all the ones I've tested this summer.  It's adapted from Mark Bitman's How To Cook Everything.